On July 30, as part of his 2026 global tour, Moby took the stage in the country of Georgia for the first time. The highly anticipated show at the Rustavi International Motorpark near Tbilisi was organized by the local promoter Flitz Collective, with Billboard Georgia serving as the main media partner.
The rich history of the music industry holds the names of many outstanding musicians. However, artists who truly redefined the scene are rare exceptions – and Moby is one of those artists, having helped bring electronic music into the mainstream while bringing emotional depth to the genre. He proved that electronic music goes beyond the club scene and can be globally popular and commercially successful.
Right before the show, Billboard Georgia sat down with Moby backstage, where the artist spoke about music, activism and more. [Editors note: This interview has been translated from Georgian.]
This is your first time in Georgia. What are your feelings and emotions as you’re about to meet the Georgian audience?
I’ve only been here for a couple of days, and I’m really fascinated by Georgia. Tbilisi feels like such a European city, even though it’s a thousand miles away from Europe. What’s interesting about Georgia is that I really like it, yet I don’t fully understand it yet. And that’s what makes it so fascinating.
With your long journey in the music industry, what do you think is the biggest illusion [the industry] creates for emerging artists?
That’s an interesting question. The biggest illusion… I think one of them is, when you’re young and successful, everybody’s nice to you. And the biggest illusion is thinking that they will continue to be nice to you when you’re old and not successful.
A lot of my friends who are young musicians, or young actors, or writers, or whatever, they’ll say things like, “Oh, my agents are great. They’re so nice, and the people at the record label are so great, they’re so nice.” And I’m like, “Yeah, wait until a few years pass.” If you’ve gone a few years without success, they might not be quite as nice, which is just, I guess, the nature of things. But I think a lot of musicians think that their agents, managers, record labels are their friends. And they find out pretty quickly that they’re not.
I have to ask about your activism. What do you think is the main shift in the human mind-set that’s necessary for people to understand the importance of animal rights?
From my perspective, it’s the ability to act logically and in accordance with our beliefs. The strangest thing about humans is that we are so illogical.
If we were to walk around and stop people to ask them three questions: “Do you like animals?” They’ll probably say “yes.” “Do you want to hurt and kill them?” Their answer would be “absolutely not.” “Are you a vegan?” Most of them would say no. And I’m like, “But you like animals and you don’t want to hurt or kill them. Wouldn’t the logical action be to not eat them, to not pay someone else to kill them for you?”
So it’s almost not about ethics, it’s about logic. But our species behaves so illogically, especially in the United States. People care about health, but they pollute the environment. They care about their children, but they won’t pass sensible gun control. We’re just deeply illogical people. I hope that we’re either going to figure out how to behave logically and build an ethical structure from that logic, or, as a species, we’re going to get wiped out.
We’re living in an era of global conflicts and shifting values. In times like these, what role and purpose do you think music plays in society?
Music can do almost anything. It can help people sleep, dance, worship or meditate. It helps people exercise, but it also calms them down. I feel really fortunate that I get to work with music, because it obviously has so much power. I’m not saying my music does, but music’s ability to reach everybody – and to reach them in the most personal way – is just deeply profound. Again, I’m not talking about my own music, I’m just talking about music in general.
Your work has always been defined by artistic exploration – offering listeners new perspectives and a different side of the art form. Today, as we live in an era of rapid technological progress and AI, how do you see the future of music?
I’ll use myself as an example: Sometimes I just love a good generic pop song, and I don’t care who made it. AI is actually really good at that. I feel like there’s room for both – for generic AI pop music and for Leonard Cohen. There’s room for a person onstage with a guitar and a cello, just as someone like Nick Cave is as far from AI as possible. There’s room for Nick Cave, and there’s room for generic pop music. And the exact same person might love both. I don’t think Nick Cave is going to put AI out of business, but I also don’t think AI is going to put Nick Cave out of business. Think of painting: Putting color on paper can result in a McDonald’s billboard, or it can be fine art. Nobody is going to a concert hall just to listen to AI. But they will do that for Nick Cave.
Just minutes after this conversation, Moby took the stage, kicking off the live show with “Bodyrock” – the iconic hit from his seminal 1999 album, Play.
Moby’s concert wasn’t just a nostalgia trip. Once again, he proved that his music goes beyond trends and temporary industry standards. This performance showed the real truth – Moby’s true power lies not just in the scale of his catalog, but in his ability to remain deeply relevant across eras, leaving a lasting impact on every listener.
—This story was written by Nino Imerlishvili for Billboard Georgia
